CHICAGO MAY
VI
Upon the toilet-table stand in rows
Pomatums that had made Canidia queasy.
‘Now we must change the proverb, I suppose:
“ Sweets to the sweet” for * Greases to the greasy.”
Yet how can one go adding grease to that
Which is the fount and archetype of fat?
“Skin foods” and “washes,” unguents, lotions, creams—
All the devices hitherto invented
For spoiling beauty, in their baddest dreams
‘That those foul badgers, barbers, never feinted.
It needed Bond Street and the “ specialists,”
‘Apes of those mirror-minded Onanists!
Is there no balm in Gilead? . . . Ah, but soap!
Ab, but hot water and a good rough towel!
“Hope springs eternal "—then there may be hope
‘That, taking up the pick-axe for the trowel,
And resolute to drive through thick and. thin,
‘Weld excavate the ruins of your skin,
‘The pioneers know where to delve, for there
Hell's beacon burns, a brazier to absorb
Al fats and powders in the world, and flare
A portent, a vast venerable orb !
Redder and shinier sure no sunset glows—
Hail in his setting to the ripe red nose